On Technology in Education and Other Places

By Prof Dr Ahmad Hashem, Chief Operating Officer, Meteor Sdn Bhd

Ever since we started formalising the process of
educating people we have used some form of technology
to assist in the process. In the very early days, well before
electronics puts the “e” in education, knowledge was
recorded and transmitted by cuneiforms. And to produce
these required the cutting edge technology of the time
(pun intended), a sharp implement on clay tablet. Somewhat
closer to the present we use our hands to write stuff
on paper and make carbon copies for distribution. The
invention and rapid evolution of electronic devices have
changed the way knowledge is recorded, stored, distributed
and accessed. We are now so comfortable with being
online that we want everything to be online too, including
education.

“A technology-enabled
education provider must
understand that the learning
experience provided using
technology ought to be
appropriate and enriching for
the learner.”

Even though technology has always been used to assist
and enable the acquisition of knowledge, it is important to
realise that technology is only the enabler of learning, not
the learning itself. Technology shouldn’t overwhelm the
learning. A technology-enabled education provider must
understand that the learning experience provided using
technology ought to be appropriate and enriching for the
learner. One size does not fit all. While school-going
learners may find learning through discovery beneficial,
adult learners may find this mode inappropriate for them.
Most adult learners have experiences that are relevant to
their areas of study and work; they do not have time for
exploration and discovery. They need to be supplied with
compact learning materials with links to further references.
The course material must be designed appropriately and
should never be frivolous.

If technology is to enable education, then it must be easily
available to the majority of the intended group. In this
regard, it must be realised that there is still great disparity
in the technology available to learners because of cost
and infrastructure limitations. The digital divide is real.
Thus, the technology adopted to facilitate education must
be the one that is easily available to the majority of learners.
Adequate technology is always better than cutting
edge. For example, video conferencing can be a useful technology to remotely connect students to a teacher in
real-time to mimic a real classroom. However, in most
cases of video conferencing, the experience is usually
frustrating. The bandwidth at the learners’ end may not be
consistently adequate, which can result in loss of connection
or frozen video. Most virtual classroom sessions
conducted via video conferencing will usually involve
several breaks for technical support, the need to speak
very loudly because of poor audio quality, and the frequent
requests for participants to orally repeat themselves. This
would not be conducive for effective learning at all!
Communication over mobile phones using text or audio
may be a better alternative.

“It would not be wise to start with
a technology and to then look at
how the technology can “help”
provide for a better way of
facilitating education.”

If a technology is to be used in education, then it must
provide the most optimum solution to the problem at hand.
It would not be wise to start with a technology and to then
look at how the technology can “help” provide for a better
way of facilitating education. There was a time, when
Facebook was still new, that educators took note of the
fact that young people were congregating and spending
most of their time lounging in this new place. The educators
saw that these youths took to the new media with ease that they (the educators) wondered if Facebook can
be a good platform for learning. They did not realise that
their students were there because their teachers were not
there! It’s their own space where they can be themselves.
It’s not a place where they go for education. So, it is
important to use the correct technology to solve a particular
problem and to know that technology is only the means
to better educate and should never be the goal of education.

Globalisation and Borderless Education
One of the benefits of using Internet technology in education
is that it allows for flexibility in learning. A learner can
learn whatever he wants, whenever he can, from whichever
material that is most useful for him. A learner can
personalise his learning plan to exactly meet his needs. He
can access small nuggets of knowledge to help in his
day-to-day work or he can study in a formal environment
towards an academic degree all at his convenience. There
is no end to the possibilities of learning. While good for the learner, this open landscape where anyone can study from
whatever sources that he wants may not be good for the provider – the local universities.

Because Internet technology makes it possible for anyone
to set up shop and provide education from anywhere, the
doors to education are now wide open. Anyone can now
put up his educational wares on the Internet for access by
everyone. Big name universities such as MIT and Harvard
as well as the not-so-big names such as OUM and WOU
can all vie for online learners in the same space. In a
scenario where learners can choose from the best and
most industry-acceptable provider at affordable costs, will
they choose the small, local providers? What will become
of these small, local, providers? Can they compete with the
big boys?

This scenario has played out in many other technology-enabled
areas and in all cases only the strongest global
brands survive and prosper. The traditional service providers
were mostly driven out of business or bought over by
the victor. Amazon disrupted the traditional bookshop
business, forcing most to close down. It is now disrupting
grocery stores and television programming. Apple has
changed the way music is consumed and in the process
drove many established music producers out of business.
The producers of music, the singers and the bands, are
now at the mercy of one or two global entities for their
royalty. The biggest businesses on the Internet are now
provided by just one or two entities. Search engine –
Google. Internet browser – Chrome. Social media – Facebook.
Internet shopping – Amazon and Alibaba. Ride hailing
– Uber and Grab. And so on.

Education is a very big business and with the present state
of technology, combined with the new economy based on
crowd-sourcing, it is ripe for disruption. There is nothing
preventing one or two existing big names in education or
probably a totally new entity from dominating the arena.
What will become of traditional educational providers such
as UM and OUM? Many will probably shrink and become
assessment centres for the big, global brands.

We are now seeing a new phenomenon unfolding because
of technology. Anyone is now free to work from anywhere
and provide services to anyone. To facilitate this freelancing
culture, several sites have been set up on the Internet to
promote and manage this new job market. Competition for
work will now be on a global scale. Many jobs can now be
farmed out to online freelancers with established track
records at very competitive rates. It is more cost-effective
to outsource jobs to freelancers than to maintain internal
resources. Can graduates from our local universities
compete in this open job market? Our educational providers
must change to better prepare our graduates for this
new scenario. The usual prescribed academic programme
leading to the award of a Bachelor or a Master in something
may no longer be relevant. Learners may just want to
pursue one area of study in order to gain current knowledge
that will be useful for his job. Credentials such as Diploma
or Bachelor or Master may no longer be valued highly. A
portfolio of work in the relevant area may be more useful.

The OUM Context

“OUM is about providing education to everyone. To
achieve this, it offers very
flexible learning to learners.”

OUM is about providing education to everyone. To achieve
this, it offers very flexible learning to learners. Learners
can learn completely on their own without attending any
face-to-face session or they can study on their own as well
as attend the scheduled sessions. OUM is also gradually
creating an online learning environment that will support
and enrich learning by guiding and alerting learners as
they progress through the learning material. In all these,
the technology used will be those readily available to the
majority of learners. OUM is going for substance rather
than flash. It is better to be less modern but useful to
many rather than to be at the cutting edge of technology
that can only benefit the few. After all, OUM’s raison d'être
is to democratise education.

Closing words
The current generation must be prepared for the new and
exciting world where technology rules. And technology is
indeed going to rule over everything. We are seeing this
scenario unfolding, albeit slowly, in the guise of automation
to free up humans from performing mundane, repetitive
and oftentimes laborious tasks in many service areas
such as manufacturing, sanitation, restaurants, warehouses
and retail businesses. The argument for automation is
noble; once humans are freed from mundane and laborious
tasks, they can enjoy a life of leisure. Automation can
truly achieve its objective but at what cost? And living, let
alone leading a life of leisure, is not free. How will the
masses earn a living to be able to live? The Orwellian
future is here, although late by several decades.

I leave the readers with some astute observations about
the future by some renowned visionaries.

“The automation of factories has already decimated jobs
in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial
intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep
into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative
or supervisory roles remaining.” — Stephen Hawking

“What to do about mass unemployment? This is going to
be a massive social challenge. There will be fewer and
fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better [than a human].
These are not things that I wish will happen. These are simply things that I think probably will happen.” — Elon
Musk

“You cross the threshold of job-replacement of certain
activities all sort of at once. So, you know, warehouse
work, driving, room cleanup, there’s quite a few things that
are meaningful job categories that, certainly in the next 20
years [will go away].” — Bill Gates